Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 A new framework for analysis and a model for legal change
- 3 The influence of normative change on the operating system
- 4 Extra-systemic adaptations to systemic imbalance
- 5 The influence of the operating system on normative change
- 6 Implications and future directions
- References
- Index
6 - Implications and future directions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 A new framework for analysis and a model for legal change
- 3 The influence of normative change on the operating system
- 4 Extra-systemic adaptations to systemic imbalance
- 5 The influence of the operating system on normative change
- 6 Implications and future directions
- References
- Index
Summary
Classic international legal analyses have been largely descriptive – what the law is – or prescriptive – what the law should be. This was acceptable for the purposes of the legal training and perhaps only slightly less so for public discourse on legal policymaking. It is, however, wholly inadequate for understanding how international law conditions behavior and the processes by which international legal change actually occurs. From a scholarly standpoint, such an understanding is essential to build theory that can account for how, when, and why international law changes (or, just as importantly, does not change). From a policymaking standpoint, elucidating these processes is essential for anticipating changes (or lack thereof) and formulating strategies to facilitate change in the face of compelling international problems.
When legal scholars have undertaken systematic analyses of international law, their models and analyses often are based on those developed for national or municipal legal systems. These do not generally fit well with the unique character of the international legal system, which lacks a central legislative body, a developed judicial system, and other elements that we traditionally associate with domestic legal systems. Rather than a mirror image of other legal arrangements, international law is better understood as one segment among several overlapping layers of legal systems. As the International Law Commission described: “international law regimes are always partial in the sense that they regulate only some aspects of State behavior while presuming the presence of a large number of other rules in order to function at all” (United Nations General Assembly, 2006: 94).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Dynamics of International Law , pp. 151 - 172Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010